Tyres can’t function without this critical raw material. Whether its natural or synthetic rubber you are interested in, articles bearing this tag feature this indispensable polymer.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries’ recent development of a highly purified form of natural rubber may take on tyre form as early as next year. The Japanese manufacturer says it plans to utilise its UPNR (Ultra Pure Natural Rubber) in several tyres, starting with new ranges scheduled for launch in 2014.
Fortune has released this year’s ‘Global 500’ list, which names the world’s largest companies in respect to turnover for the fiscal year ending before or on 31 March 2013. While no tyre firm could hold a candle to Royal Dutch Shell, whose revenues of US$481.7 billion propelled it into the number one position, three leading tyre majors made it onto the list.
Representatives of Cooper Tire’s Findlay, Ohio corporate headquarters have confirmed that the company is facing strike action at its Rongcheng, China plant. In answer to Tyres & Accessories questions, a company spokesperson confirmed that as a result the dispute the factory is “in communication with customers…regarding product supply”. No further details of what this means in practice have been released. However T&A has seen once such customer communication, which suggests the strike, which has reportedly been going on for around a month, is resulting in the delay of export shipments.
Cooper Tire Europe describes its seasonal offering as “a focused list of improved winter tyres which provides a better offering for both trade and consumer as soon as the temperature drops”. The range encompasses fitments for all types of cars and 4x4s.
Ongoing concerns over the availability of natural rubber have prompted India’s tyre makers to cast an envious eye on supplies from outside the country. Now the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA), the organisation representing ten of India’s tyre manufacturers, has handed the country’s Commerce Minister a statement saying the tyre industry will more strongly rely on rubber imports.
Falken has launched the Euroall Season AS200, which is – as the name would suggest – an all-season tyre. According to the company, Falken's new all-year-round tyre offers improved traction on dry, wet and even snowy roads without compromising on comfort. The Euroall Season AS200 also features significantly reduced tyre rolling noise and shorter braking distances. The tyre will be available at specialist tyre dealers from July 2013 in a total range of 27 dimensions.
Chippenham constituency MP Duncan Hames has welcomed the news of Cooper Tire & Rubber’s receipt of £1 million in funding from the Department of Business, Skills and Innovation’s Regional Growth Fund. The funding will be backed by private investment amounting to £4.3 million and will allow Cooper Tire to build a combined heat and power plant at the factory and install solar panels on the roof – measures aimed at improving energy efficiency and making the site more environmentally friendly.
In June 2013 almost all tyre segments outperformed the same period last year, according to sales data released by European industry body ETRMA on 16 July. Winter tyres were said to be the exception to this rule, but no further details have yet been given. One perhaps surprising observation is that markets with weaker economies in Southern Europe are actually performing better than the more established DACH or Scandinavian regions “In southern Europe, the consumer cannot delay any longer change of tyres. We seem to have reached the bottom”, ETRMA secretary general, Fazilet Cinaralp commented. However as good as bottoming out may be for future prospects of an upturn, in the short term is said to be bad news for input suppliers.
Workers at Cooper Chengshan, a joint-venture between Cooper Tire & Rubber Company (USA) and Chengshan Group (China), are reportedly on a strike in protest against Apollo’s proposed acquisition of Cooper. If correct the reports could throw up a fairly significant spanner in the works as the trade union which represents workers at what is deemed to be “the largest, most profitable and fastest-growing factory of the eight” plants that come as part of the Cooper deal, Cooper Chengshan, have expressed their opposition to the deal.
The printing technology Bridgestone previewed at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show is now a commercial reality. The Japanese manufacturer has released the first tyre featuring its sidewall printing process – now known as ‘Colorside’ – in the domestic market.
The commercial availability of Sumitomo’s Enasave 97, albeit in small volumes, has demonstrated the feasibility of producing tyres containing very little in the way of fossil fuels. Introducing completely or nearly fossil fuel-free products in greater quantities is a goal held by all tyre majors, and Continental’s head of material and process engineering has shared some details about the German tyre maker’s progress in this direction.
The Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, formerly Burma, now stands amongst the ranks of the world’s tyre producing nations. The country’s first tyre factory, MEC Tire, officially entered operation on 1 May. The occasion was marked by ceremony attended by Myanmar commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, the commander of the Navy, commander of the air force and other military and government officials, along with representatives from Chinese rubber and tyre industry machinery supplier Mesnac, who set up the plant. The MEC Tire facility was Mesnac’s first overseas turnkey project.
Following publication of news that Toyo Tire & Rubber may be looking to increase production in the US, a representative from the Japanese tyre maker contacted Tyres & Accessories to clarify the information presented in our text from 10 July.
On 29 June, Vietnam’s Danang Rubber Company and the Vietnam National Chemical Group (Vinachem) held the inauguration ceremony for their, and the country’s, first truck tyre radial factory. The new plant is located within the Lien Chieu Industrial Zone in Da Nang City, and covers an area of 106,632 square metres. It was built with a total investment of VND 2,992 billion (£92.1 million), including equipment costs of VND 1,663 billion, and has a 600,000 tyre per annum capacity. The Vietnamese tyre maker says plant equipment was imported from Italy, The Netherlands and Germany.
The results of a study carried out by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University indicate that two changes through the life of a tyre – tread rubber hardness and tread wear – have a counterbalancing effect on each other. Wing-tat Hung, Yat-ken Lam and Chung-fai Ng, from the university’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Randolph Chi-kin Leung from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, presented the findings of their study ‘the impacts of tyre hardness and tread depth on tyre/road noise’ at this week’s ICSV 20 congress in Thailand.
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